What happens after you accept an offer
From the day you accept to the day you get paid is usually 30 to 45 days if the buyer is financing. In that window the buyer inspects, objects to title, gets an appraisal and finishes their loan, while your obligations run from day one and do not pause.
This explains how home selling works in Texas. It is not legal advice and it is not tax advice. Kyle is a Realtor. For advice about your own situation, talk to an attorney or a tax professional.
Accepting an offer feels like the finish line. It is closer to the starting gun. Here is the whole stretch in order, so you know what is supposed to happen and roughly when.
Every date below counts from the effective date, which is the day the last party accepted and that acceptance got communicated back. It is written on the contract. If you are not certain what yours is, ask, because almost everything hangs off it.
You can run your own dates through the contract deadline calculator instead of counting on your fingers.
Days 1 to 3: money moves
Buyer's clock
Earnest money and option fee to the title company
3 days after the Effective Date
If the earnest money does not arrive in time, Paragraph 5C lets you terminate or use the default remedies, or both. But you have to act before they deliver it. Once it lands, that option is gone.
Both go to the escrow agent, not to you. This deadline rolls forward if it lands on a Saturday, Sunday or one of the eleven legal holidays the contract recognizes.
Ask your agent to confirm receipt with the title company on day four. Not to be difficult. Because if the option fee never showed up, the buyer never got the unrestricted right to terminate, and you should know that.
Your side starts immediately too. Utilities stay on, at your expense, for as long as the contract is alive. That is Paragraph 7A and it is not optional. An inspector cannot test a system with the power off, and a delay you cause is a delay you own.
Days 1 to 10: the option period
This is the buyer’s window to walk for any reason. Most use it for inspections.
Expect an inspector, and possibly specialists after that for foundation, roof, HVAC or plumbing. One thing you control: hydrostatic testing requires your separate written authorization. That is where a plumber pressurizes your sewer lines to look for leaks, and it can cause damage. You do not have to agree to it, and if you do, get the terms in writing.
The option period page covers the mechanics, the 5:00 p.m. rule and what you can negotiate.
Meanwhile you should already have delivered the seller’s disclosure notice and, if it applies, the new groundwater and surface water disclosure. If either one never gets delivered, the buyer can terminate any time before closing.
Days 1 to 20: title work
The title company opens the file and orders the commitment.
The survey is the piece that surprises people.
Find your survey now. Not in week three. If you cannot find it, say so early so the cost gets negotiated rather than assigned to you by default.
Days 7 to 20: objections and repairs
Two separate negotiations happen around the same time and people mix them up.
Title objections are about what the commitment and survey turn up. Easements, encroachments, restrictions.
Seller's clock
Your cure period
15 days after you receive the buyer's objections
You are not obligated to incur any expense curing anything. If it is not cured, the buyer has 5 days after the cure period to terminate or waive. If they do nothing, they are deemed to have waived.
Repair requests come out of the inspection and are a completely different conversation. Nothing in the contract obligates you to make any repair. If the two of you agree to something, it gets written into an amendment, TREC form 39-11.
If you do agree to repairs, Paragraph 7F sets real requirements. They have to be completed before the closing date, permits pulled where permits are required, and done by people who are licensed or who do this commercially. You provide documentation of the scope and the payment, and any transferable warranty gets assigned to the buyer at your expense. If you fail to finish, the buyer can use the default remedies or extend closing up to five days.
That last part is why “my brother-in-law will handle it” is a bad plan.
Days 10 to 30: the loan and the appraisal
The lender orders the appraisal, usually right after the option period ends, because buyers do not want to pay for one on a house they might leave.
The buyer has two separate approvals to clear under the financing addendum, and they are not the same thing.
Buyer approval is about them. Credit, income, assets. That deadline is a negotiated number of days after the effective date. To terminate under it, they need to give you notice and a written statement from the lender explaining why.
Property approval is about the house, and it is the one sellers are never warned about.
If the appraisal comes in low, the low appraisal page covers your options. If the lender demands repairs, Paragraph 7E says neither of you is obligated to pay for them, and if you cannot agree, the contract terminates and the earnest money goes back to the buyer. If those repairs would cost more than five percent of the sales price, the buyer can terminate outright.
Ask for status. The financing addendum authorizes the lender to tell you where the loan stands. Use it. Finding out about a problem in week two is a different situation than finding out three days before closing.
Days 25 to 45: closing
The title company sends figures and the buyer’s lender issues a closing disclosure. Ask to see a draft settlement statement before closing day. Reading your numbers for the first time at the table is how people end up signing something they do not understand.
At closing you deliver a general warranty deed and tax statements or certificates showing no delinquent taxes. Both sides sign the various notices, affidavits, releases and warranty transfers the closing requires. The buyer brings good funds. Any liens that are not being assumed get paid out of the proceeds.
Taxes prorate through the closing date, and if your exemption is coming off, the proration may be figured on the higher number. If the actual bill lands different, Paragraph 13 says the two of you settle up afterward. That obligation is real and it can run either direction.
Possession, and the part people improvise
And the newest obligation, which did not exist on the previous contract:
What can still go wrong, and when
If this happens: the buyer goes quiet after the option period ends
What is actually true
Usually nothing sinister. Loans go through underwriting and there is a stretch where genuinely nothing happens. But quiet is also what a problem looks like early.
Your options
What I would do
Ask for a specific milestone rather than a general reassurance. Has the appraisal come back. Is the file out of underwriting. Are there conditions outstanding. 'Everything's fine' is not information.
If this happens: the buyer asks to extend the closing date
What is actually true
Common, and usually a lender delay rather than a buyer problem. Extending is not automatic and it is not free to you if you have a move lined up behind it.
Your options
What I would do
Whatever you decide, paper it before the original date passes. Letting a closing date slip by without an amendment puts the deal in a strange place under Paragraph 15, and being the party who was patient does not help you there. Also ask what specifically is outstanding, because a two day extension for a missing document is a different risk than a two week extension for an underwriting problem.
If this happens: the house is damaged before closing
What is actually true
Paragraph 14 puts restoration on you. Storm damage, a burst pipe, a tree through the roof. You restore it to its previous condition by the closing date.
Your options
What I would do
Call your insurance carrier the same day, and tell your agent and the title company immediately. Keep your policy in force right up to funding. People cancel early to save a month of premium and it is a bad trade.
The through line
Your obligations start on day one and never pause. The buyer’s exits stay open, in narrowing form, almost to the end. That asymmetry is the whole subject of the main guide’s section on being married while they are still dating.
The practical version is simple. Get your paperwork out early, keep the utilities on, answer fast, ask for loan status instead of waiting for it, and keep taking back-up offers until the money funds.
Frequently asked questions
Thirty to forty-five days is normal with a loan. Cash can close in two weeks. The closing date in Paragraph 9A is the date you agreed to, or seven days after title objections are cured or waived, whichever is later.
It is the date the final party accepts and that acceptance is communicated back to the other side, and it is filled in on the contract. Nearly every deadline in the deal counts forward from it, so getting it right matters more than people assume.
It depends on which box was checked in Paragraph 6C. If you agreed to furnish your existing survey plus a T-47 affidavit or T-47.1 declaration and you fail to deliver both in time, the buyer gets a new survey at your expense. If the title company or the buyer's lender rejects your existing survey, the cost falls to whichever party the contract says.
Yes. They keep outs for title objections, financing, appraisal, insurability, lender required repairs and casualty damage. The financing exit under the Third Party Financing Addendum runs until three days before closing.
Possession transfers upon closing and funding unless you signed a temporary lease. If you stay past closing without a written lease, Paragraph 10A says that creates a tenancy at sufferance, and your insurance may not cover you. Use TREC form 15-7 if you need a few days.
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